Stop treating your life and career like a high-stakes race that you’re constantly losing. April Shprintz reveals why success is actually about learning to have fun instead of desperately chasing arbitrary milestones. When you shift your mindset from an exhausting competition to a joyful playground, you naturally align your energy to attract massive victories. April shares an insightful story about a hairdresser’s realization that helps us reclaim a perspective of pure play. You’ll discover how to unlearn the heavy habits of self-criticism and replace them with the lightness of childhood wonder. Start enjoying the journey today and watch how much faster your big goals actually arrive.
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Actually? It’s A Merry Go Round
The Unfinished Journey We All Share
I am so glad you’re here. This episode is not only for you to help you understand that you are way further along than you think you are. It is also for the younger version of me who needed to hear this so damn much when I was in my twenties and hell maybe even my 30s. I went to my hairdresser’s salon. My hairdresser just had her first child. Congratulations. Another lady who works within her salon did my hair and I had so much fun talking to her. One of the things that we talked about was that she was 39 and trying to figure out what in life would make her happy.
The Playful Reality Of True Success
I said to her, “The older that I’ve gotten and the more success I’ve had, the more it feels like the whole purpose of everything is to learn how to have fun. Learn to enjoy every moment, every experience, everything that you’re doing.” More and more, I feel like a five year old with a bank account. Which is the best feeling in the world. When I was younger, when I was in my teens, my 20s and as I said, even my 30s, I was so certain it was a race.
I had somewhere that I had to get to and that if I didn’t get there, I was a loser. I was always hard on myself. I was always beating up on myself, comparing myself to my goals or to what other people had done. I think so many of us get caught in this trap. As we’re having this conversation, we’re just joking around because she’s in that place in her life where everybody is in vastly different places. Whether 39 is way away from where you are now or it is the age you’re at or it’s an age you’ve passed. The thing that is so interesting is that people are all mixed up at that age. What I mean by mixed up isn’t confused. I mean that everyone’s in a different place.
The older I get and the more success I have, the more it feels like the whole purpose of everything is to learn how to have fun. Share on XSome people are like Taylor Swift. I think 37 or 38 or something like that, just got married. It’s her first marriage. Some people have been married and divorced and they’re getting married again. Some people have had children. Some people aren’t going to have children at all. So some people have grandchildren. Some people are having children for the very first time or they’re going on that journey. Everybody’s in such a different place.
Life Is A Merry-Go-Round
What’s great about that age around your late 30s or early 40s is, instead of life seeming like a race. It seems like a merry-go-round that everyone’s on trying to have the most fun possible. It’s just throwing you off at different places. I made that analogy and she just lost it thinking it was so funny and so brilliant. I love it when people think I’m funny. Sometimes, I think I’m brilliant but not that often. This one, I think I was accidentally brilliant and here’s why. Think back to when you were 5 years old or 4 years old or 7 years old.
We know how to play when we are kids, then we spend our adulthood unlearning the bad habits that make us miserable. Share on XWhenever you were on the proverbial playground, you didn’t think about, “How fast can I get through playing on this playground?” You thought about, “How much can I enjoy it? How much fun can I have?” You didn’t worry about what the other kids were doing, unless you wanted to play with them. You didn’t worry about if you were doing it or if you were following your plan. You just had a wonderful time. I hate to break it to you, and I hope that I would have listened to this when I was younger.
How Joy Attracts Big Goals Faster
Maybe if someone had accomplished a lot of the things that I wanted to accomplish, I would but that’s the whole point. We knew when we were kids. We learn a bunch of good and a bunch of bad habits as we get older and then, we’ve got to unlearn those habits that don’t serve us. I guarantee them to you. If you start focusing on how much fun you can have, how much you can enjoy your life, your work, your friendships, your relationships, any and all of those things. Everything that you want is going to come to you anyway.
You are not pursuing a physical goal. You are pursuing the specific feeling you think that accomplishment will give you. Share on XYou’re going to see those opportunities. You’re going to see the ways to get the other things that you want. By the way, instead of them feeling hollow and you wondering, “Why doesn’t this experience feel the way that I thought it would? You’re going to enjoy even the little things so much more that the big things are going to be everything that you hoped they would be. This may seem like I’m wax and philosophical, but what I’m trying to do is save you some of the time and heartbreak that I felt when I was younger because I was just pursuing the wrong thing.
The goals aren’t what you’re pursuing. It’s the feeling you think you’re going to have when you get them. If you can learn to have fun doing every little thing. For me, that is being a five year old with a bank account, then the big things are going to come that much faster and they’re going to feel that much better. I know you can do it. Here’s to your success.
